WILLIAMSBURG?If it's Friday afternoon, that means the possibility of a long rant: "This weekend, once again, Broadway in South Williamsburg will be overrun with production vehicles as Ford shoots a commercial at Diner. I guess they're positioning some SUV as urban hipster cool. This is becoming a regular thing for South 6th, Broadway and and some of the surrounding streets. Not only is it a pain to find parking (if you're bourge' enough to have a car) but you can't even have Fresh Direct deliver (if you're even more bouge' to not schlep your groceries home). They even try to get people to not leave their apartments from the front door or prevent people from walking their dogs. Normally I don't care about this but they really trash the streets and give nothing back to the locals (meaning the post-hipster, condo-livin' locals, not the Satmars). Couldn't they at least spring for a newly planted tree?" [CurbedWire Inbox]
UPPER WEST SIDE?On the non-complaining side of the coin, an email comes to us praising a new 20-story condo going up on West End Avenue between 85th and 86th Streets. Our emailer writes, "although it breaks the WEA cornice line, I think it is VERY tasteful."The architect of the building, which is being developed by Extell, is Lucien Lagrange. The building will include four studios on the second floor and “penthouse” units on the top five floors. Also the usual suspects in terms of amenities: a recreation room, fitness center, swimming pool and game room. [CurbedWire Inbox]
EVERYWHERE?We end with scaffolding. An email says, "I'm a new reader and new to NYC. I wonder what the heck is up with all this scaffolding. I have been visiting a hotel on the W side for two years and they've had scaffolding up that whole time. What gives? No other city seems to have scaffolding up in so many places as here. It ruins the architecture!!!" [CurbedWire Inbox]